DC DARK: Batman
by Dan Bivens
Summary: What if, in some darker Reality in the DC Universe, Batman had come to be as a true masked vigilante, instead of a costumed someone helping to uphold Justice in Gotham City. A truer terror in Cape and Cowl. How would this play out?
1. Chapter 1

**DC DARK: BATMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 1

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Dad! Mom! Noooooooooo!"

Bruce Wayne, once again, awoke in a cold flop sweat in the middle of maddening night. A night, like all the nights that continuously tortured the billionaire son of a gunned down, in cold blood, Thomas and Martha Wayne before the boy Bruce.

So tortuously long did the boy Bruce cry himself to sleep, only to relive that frightening night an unending number of times...until, finally, as a young man, he had had enough. Especially so since, by the time Bruce Wayne was in his late-teens, Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne butler and surrogate father for Bruce during an unendurably traumatic youth, had died suddenly of a massive heart attack.

Thus forcing Bruce Wayne...in this far darker Reality!...to become much more self-sufficient a lot sooner than many might think he could or should have been.

For Bruce's brooding deepened and his desire for exacting some semblance of vigilante vengeance and justice against Gotham City criminals burned not brighter but hotter than might have happened had he still had the guidance and, yes, fatherly-like love of Alfred a little longer.

Using not only his vast fortune, but his bountiful high-tech connections via the world-wide Wayne Enterprises, Bruce Wayne would not only travel the globe learning martial arts style single-against-several combat methods. Bruce would also, clandestinely of course, acquire an incredible one-of-a-kind array of anti-criminal instrumentality, including an unequivocally unique car, all to be housed solely in a colossal beneath-the-mansion cave.

Not to mention the secretive creation of a blue-gray, bullet-proof padded, identity-hiding, cowled-and-caped costume reflecting the fact he had come to call his vigilante alter-ego Batman. As well as arming himself with deleteriously designed Ninja-style Bat-belt contained items with which to war against crime and criminals.

However, in this decidedly darker Reality, the Batman would lean much more toward the exacting of terrible revenge than bringing bad men, and women, to truer justice.

The Batman, in this heartless Here-and-Now, would devolve into more murderer than deputized dispenser of street-side righteousness.

A true terror-delivering vigilante.

Starting with a super-villain calling himself: the Joker.

A Dark Comic in mad makeup who was heading up a small army of vile and evil career criminals more than willing to kill countless innocents in their devilish desire to steal...and, through the twisted vision of their weird leader...destroy wantonly and pitilessly.

"Haaaaa, hahahahahahahahaha!" cackled Joker, hair of green framing a face of white with ridiculously wide grin, while wearing a purplish suit as insane in style as its wild-eyed wearer was in intent. "That's it, boys, grab everything you can carry in those Joker-ized tote bags and see to it that these good citizens quivering at our collective feet get what all 'good citizens' get. A quick and bloody death! Hahahahahaha, hoo, hoo, hoooooo!"

"With pleasure, boss," snarled a skinhead-turned-heartless hoodlum faithfully following this crazed Clown Prince of Crime. Pulling a chrome-plated .357 Smith-and-Wesson and aiming it at one, then another, of the cowering cowards, in this ex-skinhead's perverted view of victims. "With pleasure."

Bam!

"Nooo--!"

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**DC DARK: BATMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 2

Even as the powerful weapon's projectile bloodily ended the life of one of several victims of nighttime robbery by the Joker's heartless collection of criminals, causing the cackling Clown Prince of Crime to laugh louder and more madly while the skinhead-cum-Joker thug prepared to fire a second killing shot at yet another terrified unfortunate.

But, luckily for this shaking, crying individual, Batman swooped onto the scene and quickly acquired bat-shaped shurikens from his bright-yellow Bat-belt...

"Not this time, punk!"

...which, upon impacting with the back of that hairless head, dealt Death both brutally and bloodily.

"No!" angrily growled the Joker at the sight of the ex-skinhead dropping dead to the floor of an establishment rich in cold, hard cash and glittering gems. "I've had enough of you, Bat-brain! And I'm ready for you this time! Hahahahahaha!"

Extending swiftly past purple coat sleeve via a muscle-twitch controlled, spring-loaded rod was a long-barreled revolver containing six high-caliber bullets...

"Die, Batman! Heheheheheheheheh!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

...which promptly impacted bullet-proofed Bat-suit in order to ricochet away, while only slightly delivering pain to the all-too-Human form it protected.

Allowing the Batman to surreptitiously slip out yet another counter-criminal contrivance with which to do to the Joker what he believed should have been done before during these seemingly endless nights of extremely insane criminal activities.

"Hehehehe--"

Thuk!

Thud!

The sudden sight of Joker lying crumpled upon the floor, blood flowing freely from a chest wound wrought by what could only be described as a Bat-dagger. Hurled with unerring precision by the Bat-gloved hand of a truly Dark Knight.

"We give up!" shouted, almost simultaneously, the remaining criminals making up the unscrupulous crew of the now-dead Clown Prince of Crime. "Please, Batman! We give up! We gi--!"

Shhhh-thunk! Shhhh-thunk! Shhhh-thunk!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

As the blood of three more mortally attacked, via various sharp-edged devices carried within the compartments of a bright-yellow Bat-belt, career criminals lay lifelessly at his Bat-booted feet...

"Oh...my God..."

...and as the formerly terrified-for-their-lives victims slowly stood to stare in disbelief at the dead bodies of criminals clearly surrendering themselves to this Cowled-and-Caped Crusader.

"B-but, Batman," one managed even as the Dark Knight tossed up a second Batarang-and-line in order to remove himself from this site as secretively as he had arrived. "Th-they were giving up. Why did you...?"

"Murderous criminals," Batman said while climbing up the slender-but-strong Bat-line, "deserve to be murdered. Not to merely live a few years behind bars while awaiting possible parole. Why should you care? Your killers have been killed...and you are alive and free."

Before more could be said, the Batman of this Darker Reality left long before the officers and detectives of the GCPD arrived to find, yet again, that this mysteriously masked marauder of midnight had murderously struck yet again.

"Damn," grumbled Commissioner James Gordon after holstering his pistol at the sight of several cold-blooded bodies belonging to the Joker's group lying in slowly spreading pools of blood. "The Batman's struck again."

"We need to catch that caped creep, Commissioner," snarled Detective Harvey Bullock, his own automatic pistol still tightly held in one hand.

"Yeah," angrily agreed the equally-decorated uniformed officer, Sgt. Renee Montoya, while holstering, at her own hip, a Glock 18. "Harvey's right, sir. The Batman's got to be stopped."

"I know," heavily heaved Commissioner Gordon. "But a man like that...he'd die before being arrested. All right...let's get the meat wagons out here to pick up these bodies while we police the premises and look for clues. Although, if the Batman's still true to form, we won't find a damn thing other than fingerprint resistant shurikens and daggers."

Meanwhile, hurtling along at unbelievable velocities as satanic turbo-engine produced flame licked the cold night air behind the obsidian Batmobile...

A sadistic smile spread across the exposed lips of the lower half of the cowl-covered head of a billionaire bringer of Bat-justice baptized in the blood of cold-blooded criminals.

Listening to his Batmobile's computer picking up yet another instance of super-criminal activity elsewhere in the inhumanly huge Gotham City...

"...repeat: Reports of the Riddler and his gang holding hostages at a break-in at the Gotham Museum on..."

Stabbing a button that instantly silenced the unseen speakers passing along such uncovered-via-computer programming super-criminal activities, Batman muttered murderously, "Riddler...time to put an end to your period of puzzlement. Permanently."

With that, the Batmobile made its way toward the whereabouts of the Riddler at better than two hundred miles-per-hour. So consumed with a desire for dealing Death to "evil-doers" that he nearly ran down everyday citizens in such an irrationally rapid speed.

One could make the comment that Batman was currently controlled by "Bat-tunnel vision" instead of seeking to dispense true Justice to the unjust.

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**DC DARK: BATMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 3

"Riddle me this, you insignificant sheep," loudly proclaimed the man in green with question marks making up the strange suit's singular design.

Causing the held-at-gunpoint persons previously visiting an open-late museum holding within its walls, amongst other things, a collection of intricate puzzle pieces supposedly stretching as far back as the Renaissance.

Clearly catching the criminal mind of a self-professed genius of such puzzles and an obsessive-compulsive deliverer of riddles.

"I am the center of gravity, hold a capital situation in Vienna, and as I am foremost in every victory, am allowed by all to be invaluable. Though I am invisible, I am clearly seen in the midst of a river. I could name three who are in love with me and have three associates in vice. It is vain that you seek me for I have long been in heaven yet even now lie embalmed in the grave. What am I?"

Before any of the frightened-for-their-lives, and rightly so!, museum hostages could hazard a guess...or even think at all!...a harshly whispered, but still loud enough, voice responded from a shadowy edge.

"You are the letter 'V', Riddler. And 'grave' is where you and your punks will soon be!"

"Batman!" exclaimed Riddler even as he and his hoods spun in the direction of the Very Dark Knight. "Kill him!"

Not one to do his own dirty work. Preferring riddles and word games to the handling of actual firearms. Riddler hid behind nearby marble pieces even as his heavily armed minions sent a veritable hail of high-caliber bullets at the Batman.

Covering up quickly, so his half-exposed face would not be at all hit with hurtling hot lead, Batman pulled balls of killing chemicals that he swiftly tossed to explode at the feet of the closing-while-shooting hoods...

"Ackk!"

"Argg!"

"C-can't...b-breath..."

"Riddler...!"

In the span of seconds, though it seemed, even to the museum hostages, to take a lot longer, all of the Riddler's hard-boiled, cold-hearted, easy-to-manipulate criminal-types had fallen face-first onto the highly-polished parquet flooring...

"Riddle me this, Riddler," snarled the Batman while slowly slipping out one last killing accoutrement from a compartment to the back of his Bat-belt. "What happens to a Human head when a fast-moving piece of unforgiving metal makes brief-but-fatalistic contact?"

"Wh-what?" stammered a still-shocked-over-what-happened-to-his-hoods Riddler while looking from around the priceless piece behind which he had hidden himself mere moments earlier.

A mistake made immediately and bloodily clear once a Bat-derringer explosively unleashed a single bullet of significant destructive potential which hurriedly and bloodily bored its way through the forehead of the Man in Green.

Even as, knees buckling, the lifeless form of the Riddler collapsed straight down like a just-released rag doll onto that self-same polished parquet floor, much to the simultaneous shock of the hostages...

"Exactly," finished the sadistically smirking Batman while returning the smoking Bat-derringer to its proper Bat-belt compartment. Then, with no further interaction with those shocked and sickened persons murderously "saved" by the Dark-and-Deadly Knight, the cold-blooded costumed crime-killer left as quietly has he had arrived.

END OF CHAPTER 3


	4. Chapter 4

**DC DARK: BATMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 4/Conclusion

Batman was not as lucky in leaving the scene of coldly killed criminals as he had been since first setting out to be the Sinister Scourge of the Underworld he had, in this Darker Reality, in fact quickly become...frightening even those Gothamites he was supposedly protecting!...and was thus confronted by the True Purveyors of Pro-Victim Justice.

"Batman," a bullhorn-delivered voice explosively said to the Batman, who had been quickly cornered just outside the upper part of the Gotham Museum, "this is Commissioner James Gordon speaking! You are hereby under arrest for vigilante activities in and around downtown Gotham City! You are directed to surrender yourself for trial!"

"What the hell's wrong with you, Commissioner?" loudly called back Batman, while allowing Bat-gloved hands to linger close to a Bat-belt basically covered via his Bat-cape. "I've not killed anyone who didn't deserve it! Do you really think the likes of the Joker or the Riddler or, before them, Two-Face, Penguin, or Catwoman would've received the 'justice' their kind deserves in a court of law?"

"And what about the common criminals you have murdered in the midnight hours, Batman?" called back, still by bullhorn, Commissioner Gordon even as the GCPD, including Bullock and Montoya, readied to fire their respective weapons should such be necessary. "Have you forgotten them? How can you justify killing muggers or burglars who weren't even armed?"

"They chose their Fatal Fate when they chose Crime, Commissioner!" coldly concluded the Batman without even a hint of true remorse for such non-super-villain kills early on in his costumed crimefighting career.

"That's not for you to determine, Batman! That's for a judge and jury to decide! And I can damn sure tell you now, the non-violent criminals would not have been put to death! Ever!"

"Spare the Bat-shuriken and Bat-dagger, Commissioner Gordon," madly declared the Cowl-and-Caped Crusader of Bloody Retribution, "and spoil the criminal! Now, if you don't mind...!"

"Stay right where you are!" ordered the Police Commissioner with the silver mustache and horn-rimmed eyeglasses. His tone as determined as that of the Dark Knight. "I've given my people a 'shoot to kill' command if you try to escape again! This is your last chance, Batman!"

"No, Commissioner," he almost muttered, barely loud enough to carry on the cold currents of nighttime air. "This is your last chance..."

"No!" yelled Commissioner Gordon, dropping the bullhorn from his mustached mouth, even as Detective Harvey Bullock and Sgt. Renee Montoya led the collection of GCPD officers, uniformed or not, in firing directly up at the trying-to-Batarang-escape Batman.

Commissioner James Gordon didn't want it to end this way. He knew, deep down, that the Batman truly was attempting to rid Gotham City of rampant crime, especially super-crime, that had long gripped its magnificent immensity since just before the "birth" of this Cowled-and-Caped Crusader.

It was now out of his hands as he watched Batman fall amidst the multitude of bullets, from pistols as well as shotguns, to land lifelessly upon the street some thirty feet or more from where the Dark Knight had hurled out a Batarang-and-line in order to swing/climb away prior to returning to his self-protected/secured Batmobile.

As the echoing chorus of gunfire faded into the near-distance, Commissioner Gordon lead Detective Bullock and Sgt. Montoya toward the unmoving man in Bat-caped/cowled costume almost swallowed whole by the shadows of the late hour of this disappointingly prosperous night.

"I hated that it came to this," he sighed solemnly. "But the Batman left us little choice."

"I don't know about you two," a remorseless Bullock was quick to claim, "but I can't wait to see who the hell's underneath that crazy cowl."

Before Bullock could act upon such a remorseless desire, even as all the other GCPD officers and detectives had put away their weapons while allowing relaxation to claim their previously tensed Selves...

Pop-Suusssssshhhhhhhh!

"What the hell...?"

"It's some sort of gas...!"

As such was shouted amidst choking coughs and a torrent of tears from stinging eyes, even though all three automatically drew their weapons in ready response...

"He's gone!"

Sure enough, the seemingly lifeless Batman had merely played 'possum until three of his official assailants were close enough to make use of the one and only non-lethal antipersonnel article contained within that bright-yellow Bat-belt.

Though he was cold-blooded when it came to criminals, normal or super!, the Batman had no desire to kill crimefighting colleagues...even if they were too short-sighted to see his twisted logic in regards to dealing fatally with all felonious offenders.

As the stinging, tearing, and coughing faded along with the acrid clouds unleashed so surreptitiously by the Batman...

"Damn."

And so, in this Dark Reality's Gotham City, the Cowled-and-Caped Crimefighter proves to be much bloodier than the Batman most of us have come to comprehend and commend. He, in many ways, was as much a nightmarish midnight murderer as many of those he had, thus far, killed.

As well as those who would, inevitably, come to be.

END?


End file.
